Women in Sudan facing a 'tragedy' of sexual violence as rape cases rise

Women in Sudan facing a ‘tragedy’ of sexual violence as rape cases rise

Reported cases are almost all by RSF paramilitaries and are just the tip of the iceberg, say campaign groups

Fred Harter
Tue 29 Aug 2023 01.00 EDT
Last modified on Tue 29 Aug 2023 01.13 EDT

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Systematic sexual violence is being used by paramilitaries in Sudan to degrade and humiliate people, say campaign groups. Photograph: Ümit Bektaş/Reuters

Since Sudan’s conflict erupted in April, Sulima Ishaq has been working around the clock. As the head of the country’s Combating Violence against Women and Children unit, it is her job to document sexual violence. It has now become systematic. Ishaq and her team usually act on tipoffs from doctors and nurses. Sometimes, late at night, she receives calls directly from survivors, who tell her about their ordeals. In a recent case, a teenage mother was raped by seven fighters while she fetched firewood in the western Darfur region. Another woman was gang-raped at her home in the capital, Khartoum, in front of her siblings. Ishaq describes the scale of the sexual violence directed at Sudan’s women as a tragedy. “Sometimes the documentation process itself is very painful,” she says. “It is impossible to disconnect.”

The fighting in Sudan has killed at least 4,000 people and forced 4.5 million from their homes. Most of it has centred on Darfur and Khartoum where there have been fierce battles in residential neighbourhoods. So far, Ishaq and her team have verified 124 rapes.
A portrait of Sulima Ishaq at the Combating Violence against Women and Children unit in Sudan

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Sulima Ishaq, who with her team has verified 124 rapes and fears violence against women will increase. Photograph: Nariman El-Mofty/AP

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“It is brutal, and it is all about humiliation and degrading human dignity,” says Ishaq. “Sometimes it is a part of their strategy. To make people evacuate their houses, they threaten sexual violence against the women.” More than 4 million women and girls are at risk of sexual violence across Sudan, according to the World Health Organization. The Darfur Women Action Group and the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA), two campaign groups, have both documented cases of women being kidnapped by the RSF for ransom. They are often raped while they are held hostage. Many have been taken to Chad or kept as sex slaves.


Hala Al-Karib, SIHA

Several rapes documented by SIHA in Khartoum happened when women tried to retrieve documents from their abandoned homes, only to find them occupied by the RSF. Other women were seized from the streets. “The testimonies all point towards the RSF,” says Hala Al-Karib, the regional director at SIHA. “We have testimonies of women who have been raped in front of their families. In Omdurman, a mother and her three daughters were all raped in front of each other.” A woman recently assisted by Save the Children was raped when a group of armed fighters burst into her family’s Khartoum home and threatened to kill them all unless they gave them a daughter. Two other girls helped by the NGO were raped in front of their father in Khartoum. One of them later died from her injuries, while her father died from suspected shock. “The number of cases is huge,” says Katharina von Schroeder, a spokesperson for Save the Children.
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Sudanese women protesting in Khartoum in July 2022. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

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Last week, a group of UN human rights experts said the RSF were using rape and other sexual violence “as tools to punish and terrorise communities”, citing reports of hundreds of women being kept as slaves to be raped in degrading conditions. Save the Children has warned that children as young as 12 are being raped, with some “targeted specifically for their ethnicity as well as their gender”. Ishaq fears the level of sexual violence will increase if the fighting reaches new areas. She is also worried about the mental health of her staff as they continue their documentation work. “We are being traumatised,” she says. “In our nightmares, we carry the stories of the agony, the struggle and the pain.”

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/29/women-in-sudan-facing-a-tragedy-of-sexual-violence-as-cases-rise